1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to community information systems and, more particularly, to efficiently creating presentations that pertain to community information and delivering them simultaneously in various forms of media.
2. Description of Related Art
There are numerous methods and systems in the prior art for effecting transmission and display of predefined data to a targeted audience. Hospitals, airports, hotels, schools, houses of worship, nursing homes, retirement communities, etc. are examples of accommodations areas, either public or private, in which in-house programming is transmitted through a closed-circuit television environment to multiple television monitors within the accommodation area. The predefined data usually includes informational data that may be of interest to persons within the accommodation area. Usually, such informational data is specific to the function of, activities occurring in, and operational aspects relating to the particular accommodation area in which the informational data is shown. Accordingly, such information may be conveyed to that particular accommodation area in various ways.
An example of a prior art system for facilitating communication among members of a community is disclosed in U.S. Patent Application Publication No. US 2003/0050986 to Matthews et al. However, the content delivery in the Matthews system is limited to the context of email, message boards, and an events calendar. Furthermore, active steps are required to be performed by members of the community to not only transmit content, but also receive content. Additionally, the information transmitted via the Matthews system is static and requires new emails and/or messages to be transmitted and retrieved when informational content has been updated. Accordingly, the Matthews system is not conducive to adequately serving the needs of a community that requires a television system in which content is received in a primarily passive manner (e.g., only having to turn on a television and tune to a particular channel) with respect to the recipient.
For example, prior art community-based television systems, also known as private channel television, in-house television, community television and digital signage, transmit informational data to multiple monitors in an accommodation area. The informational data may include activities, calendars, dining menus, announcements, photographs, videos, contact information, etc. Based upon the dynamic nature of the information presented, the programming that is to be presented to the residents is required to be updated regularly, for example, on a monthly, weekly, daily, or even hourly basis. Presently, such programming is generally implemented via a dedicated workstation situated within the accommodation area. Specifically, an operator is charged with tasks such as manually inputting the updated information, importing photographs, formatting video clips, etc. The resultant programming is a multimedia presentation that may be directly transmitted from the workstation as an audio/video feed to the monitors within the accommodation area.
However, creation of such programming may be time consuming and prone to editing errors, especially if only a single operator is responsible for creation of the programming. If the operator desires the information to be delivered in multiple forms (e.g., television, web site, print, etc.), then substantial duplicate data entry is required. Additionally, any changes to the current programming require that updates be made locally at the workstation. Furthermore, updates cannot be immediately implemented unless an operator or other qualified person is available on-site to access the workstation. A prior art software authoring tool and system for manual programming is the 2100 MWS Desktop System, the 2100/MWS Pro, the DeskTop 2000 System, the VCM 2000, and other related products offered by Visitor & Community Television Corporation, also known as VCTV. However, these software authoring tools and systems are not configured for Internet broadcasting. Additionally, the prior art software authoring tools and systems lack the ability to automate the design process used in creating the programming. Specifically, each time new content is provided for inclusion into the programming or existing content is altered, the programming is required to be manually changed by the operator. The addition, deletion and modification of such content may cause existing presentation elements to clash. For example, existing presentation elements may visually shift or newly introduced content may not fit within predefined areas of the existing programming. Therefore, the operator is required to review the entire programming and make the necessary modifications every time content is added, deleted or modified. Accordingly, additional resources (personnel, time and money) are expended each time a change is to be made to the programming.
Due to the non-Internet environment in which the audio/video feed is transmitted, the programming of prior art community-based television systems is limited to transmission and display to the monitors within the accommodation area. Therefore, persons not located in the accommodation area, but who have an interest in viewing the information presented within the accommodation area are precluded from doing so. Additionally, not presenting the accommodation area programming to an external audience limits marketing effectiveness. For example, lack of presentation of dynamic content, such as is found in brochures or static web sites, to families of residents or prospective residents or customers limits the perceived value of the accommodation area that may be conveyed to this audience.
Even if the content of the programming is presented outside of the accommodation area in a different medium, such as on a web site, the operator responsible for the programming would be required to possess knowledge of web site technology to import and format the content in the context of web accessible material. Alternatively, the accommodation area may contract with a web hosting/design company to provide such services. However, either of these options introduces additional cost and a possible lag time until the web site reflects the information presented in the programming currently shown on the televisions of the accommodation area. A prior art system for transmitting content on an enterprise-wide basis to both stand-alone televisions and Internet-connected displays is sold by Symon Communications, Inc., under the name of TargetVision (http://www.targetvision.com). However, such a system suffers from many of the aforementioned deficiencies including the absence of automatic presentation generation and the lack of integrating external content submission functionality.
Furthermore, with respect to printed calendars, the prior art requires that accommodation area staff manage an additional system, separate from that of the community-based television system. This additional system introduces increased labor costs and potential mismatches between the information listed on the printed calendar and that displayed to residents via the community-based television system.